Climate Change
California Adopts Low-Carbon Fuel Standard
Good. The California Air Resources Board has adopted the nation’s first mandate to lower the carbon in fuel. As these things go, it’s pretty mild: a 10% reduction in carbon footprint by 2020. That hasn’t stopped the oil industry from complaining, of course, stating that CARB is “moving too fast.” When will it not be …
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CONTINUE READINGCars, Obama and Climate Change
There’s big news coming out of Washington and Detroit this week about the fate of U.S. automakers. Rumors surfaced yesterday that G.M. will furlough its U.S. factories for most of the summer due to declines in auto sales. And the Obama Treasury Department is said to be pressuring Chrysler to prepare for bankruptcy, to be filed as …
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CONTINUE READINGClimate Change Legislation: Is the Train (Finally) Leaving the Station?
I posted yesterday about Rep. Boehner’s bone-headed statement about climate change. My first thought was that this was completely idiotic, making a childish argument that even George W. Bush would have scorned. The fact that some CO2 is normal and even necessary proves nothing about what happens when concentrations go beyond the normal level: salt …
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CONTINUE READINGFlunking Climate 101
John Boehner, the House Republican leader, explains his view of climate change to George Stephanopoulos: George, the idea that carbon dioxide is a carcinogen, that it’s harmful to our environment is almost comical. Every time we exhale, we exhale carbon dioxide. Every cow in the world, uh, well, you know when they do what they …
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CONTINUE READINGClimate Change and Environmental Impact Statements
Government agencies are struggling with how to fit climate change into the process of environmental review. At one level, this is a no-brainer. Greenhouse gases contribute to climate change, and climate change is the biggest environmental impact of all. But as always, the devil is in the details.
CONTINUE READINGOh What A Difference A President Makes
We’re not even 85 days into the Obama Administration and yet the signs of environmental change are all around us. The EPA announced today its formal determination under the Clean Air Act that greenhouse gases are pollutants that endanger public health and welfare. This is only the latest in a string of announcements that show just how quickly Obama is …
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CONTINUE READINGLow-hanging carbon
I’m looking forward to hearing Scripps climate scientist Veerabhadran Ramanathan speak at an event next week in Los Angeles, and I hope he’ll talk about black carbon, which many are calling the low-hanging fruit of the climate change problem. Black carbon is the fine black soot that’s generated by carbon combustion, these days mostly from traditional cookstoves and …
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CONTINUE READINGEPA report on US greenhouse gas emissions and sinks may not tell the whole story
Under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC), the international agreement that resulted in the Kyoto Protocol and that will convene a new round of talks in Copenhagen later this year, the U.S. is required to report comprehensively each year on U.S.-based emissions of greenhouse gases and on GHG sinks in the U.S. The U.S. EPA released …
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CONTINUE READINGNews Flash: White House Approves Endangerment Finding
ClimateWire (subscription required) reports; U.S. EPA’s proposed endangerment finding cleared the White House review process yesterday, paving the way for an official announcement detailing the threats posed by global warming to both public health and welfare. President Obama’s EPA inherited the global warming review following an April 2007 Supreme Court decision that ordered the Bush …
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CONTINUE READINGIs April the New May?
This beautiful spring day seems an appropriate occasion to think about the changing of the seasons. That’s coming earlier and earlier these days. From RealClimate: Did you know that in 1965 the U.S. Department of Agriculture planted a particular variety of lilac in more than seventy locations around the U.S. Northeast, to detect the onset …
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